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It was only a couple of months ago that I wrote about living with all of the phones on the market. But in the short time since that article, a new wave of models and upgrades has appeared which raises the bar across the board. The winner last time round was the Samsung Galaxy S II. But, after living with the new batch, is that still the phone to buy? Nokia is back in the game, Motorola has re-launched the iconic Razr and the new iPhone 4S has hit the market.

Is there a definitive winner this time? The answer is a resounding 'no!' If anything is clear, it's that there are now several phones which are all better at doing some things than their competitors.

As before, you'll be able to find more detailed reviews on features and performance elsewhere. What follows are reports on what each phone was like to live with. How was their handling? What proved annoying? Which features actually got used?

People mould their lives around smartphones, so there's no point in having all the bells and whistles if it's a pain to use.

First up was the HTC Evo 3D ($480ish). After the disappointment of the slimmer HTC Sensation, which has identical 1.2GHz insides but suffered from a bit of lag, it was interesting (and a relief) to see that the Evo was fully responsive. In fact the HTC Sense 3.0 interface software flew along and reminded me why this was such a great layer on top of Android - the contact management, startup shortcuts and tracking options all work very well again and didn't affect Android's speed in day-to-day performance.

As with LG's Optimus 3D, the large battery (which is required for all the 3D processing) is a great boon for regular 2D phone usage - it lasts for ages. This is the first phone that I've happily left syncing all day without worrying about battery drain. The strength of the WiFi antennae should also be mentioned. Only the iPhone (and to a lesser extent, the Razr) rival it at latching on to weak signals. As pointed out by female power users, it's a very masculine phone: the twin cameras on the back are very prominent as are the large, metallic camera buttons. People still say 3D is a gimmick, but I never got bored of it. In fact, I find I look at photos on my phone more often than anywhere else and the 3D pics and videos never stopped wowing the people I showed them to. It was a particular hit at a wedding and kids' party.

The only downside with this phone is the keyboard which felt too inaccurate, but you can replace that quite easily on Android. I loved this phone and it may be my stalwart companion moving forward. I'm also beginning to suspect that a 4.3in screen is the optimum size for a phone.

Motorola Razr

It was great to see the Razr back and in many respects, Motorola has done a great job. It is very thin, its Kevlar exterior (with high-tech splash proof coating) makes it feel like a bond gadget and it's undeniably stylish. Equally important, Motorola has listened to the hateful feedback of its Motorola Blur interface software (which sat atop Android like a turd) and honed it into a useful system with decent Android usability tweaks. I also never got tired of the CRT-like power-off animation. But it's not perfect. You need big hands to comfortably hold this very-wide phone. It's marketed as "impossibly thin", but this is achieved at the expense of width and height. While the 4.3in screen is similar to the Evo 3D, the thin, angular chassis makes the phone more-awkward to hold. It's also some half-a-centimetre longer and so will only fit in larger pockets. It's also very expensive at $650ish. Nonetheless, this is a great flagship phone that puts Motorola back at the front of the pack. While it's impractical to handle for some people, even if viewed solely as a concept phone it's a desirable object that is available to the public and works very well.

HTC Sensation XL

The Razr wasn't the only big boy on show. The new HTC Sensation XL came out of nowhere and pushed boundaries on the spot. Its supercharged 1.5GHz single-core processor meant it flew along and its huge 4.7-inch screen is means it's nudging the tablet-computer territory of the 5-inch Dell Streak. But the chassis takes up the same area as the Razr and the rounded sides, while fatter, actually make it more-comfortable to hold. The white facia with metal backplate keep it stylish but its party piece is its music ability. A special audio chip adds better bass response to music playback and it comes with a high-quality pair of Monster, headphones. HTC Sense 3.5 just flies along. If I had one criticisim it's that the screen could do with a slightly-higher resolution. But ultimately, this is the first phone I've been almost-happy to thumb type on thanks to the large display. Despite the upgrade in hardware, battery life is the standard for a smartphone - about a day depending on what you use it for. I love this phone. It's still very wide though and, while more-comfortable to hold than the Razr, its smooth sides meant it could slip around in my hand. The online, no-contract price fluctuates wildly between $580 and $700ish but the big downside is it's exclusive to Vodafone, (albeit on generous plans) until January. Nonetheless, this is my favourite phone of the moment. Until I get bored of it.

Nokia N9

You've got to feel sorry for Nokia. It was king of the phone world and yet in the space of a few years it became the phone choice of the peasant populace when it didn't really do much wrong. Nonetheless, its failure to note which way the wind was blowing (or its determination not to) has meant that the opposition has flown past and off to the horizon leaving the company wondering what on earth went wrong. But it's not over yet.

It took me just a few seconds to hate the laggy, unresponsive, Symbian-based N8, but the N9 looks funky and was immediately responsive. It runs the Meego operating system which has been in development for years but the N9 is still the only device on the market that uses it. Recent history has made me very wary of buying into niche platforms like this - if they don't catch on you find yourself in a void of failed formats like Betmax, ATRAC, and HD DVD. Oh, and Nokia's Symbian.

The colourful chassis and 'edgeless' screen makes it one of the prettiest phones around which will instantly meet the requirements of some people. But with a 1GHz single-core processor, it's the slowest competitor (on paper) and once multitasking kicked in, it felt it. It physically warmed up very quickly and started to lag and hang. More annoyingly, jabbing the unresponsive screen saw the phone eventually catch up with what you originally want it to do and then register your jabbing which, by then, would activate something completely different. Very annoying. But this was only when multitasking. After a while you learn not to do this.

A problem for power users, like me, is the constant syncing of accounts. You either turn background syncing ALL on or ALL off - apps, email, the lot. It also wouldn't sync with my Google Apps which is very annoying on a smartphone. This could be fixed down the line and it needs to be.

The battery lasted a paltry half day when syncing all my Twitter, Facebook and email accounts. I also found that the constant switching between different applications caused the processor to max out and further drain the battery. Performance-wise it's like bottom of the range Android phones - but they cost half as much. Ultimately though, at $600 it's way too expensive and can't compete in this crowd.

Meego and the N9 is currently for those who want to be different for being-different's sake. The existing app store (which is hugely-important for smartphones) is tiny and while it does include A-List games like Angry Birds and Need for Speed, one wonders which developers will bother in the future without being pushed by Nokia. While the N9 represents a step forward for Nokia, it doesn't look like it's in the right direction.

It's not all bad for Nokia, though. The first Nokia Windows Phone 7 phones have appeared overseas and I can still this platform grabbing market share being backed by Nokia Microsoft - particularly when the similar-looking Windows 8 appears.

HTC HD7 and Samsung Omnia 7

While the iPhone 4 was starting to feel a little old, and while Android was exploding into every direction, it's impressive that the Windows Phone 7-based Samsung Omnia 7 ($420ish) and HTC HD 7 ($350ish) still felt fresh, thanks to simple upgrades to version 7.5 of the OS (aka Mango). These phones both have single-core 1GHz processors and while they don't zip along like newer models, they still feel generally responsive and lag-free. Having been out for several months, they are also now relatively cheap. These are the best WP7 phones I've tested and they're virtually identical in terms of usage. But while the Samsung has a marginally better screen, the HD7's buttons and styling are superior. And it's cheaper.

The Mango improvements aren't totally obvious, but then they didn't need to be. They've kept the platform fresh. Meanwhile the app store has been frantically expanding with high-quality apps and, more importantly, top-quality games. It's already better than Android in many regards and the games rival (and sometimes beat) those on the iPhone. What it lacks in variety and numbers to Apple's App Store, it makes up for with the XBox tie in. XBox gamer points and achievements represent by far the best implementation of gaining 'internet points' and millions of XBox owners will love the idea of improving their Gamer Scores by using their phones.

Syncing with umpteen different Microsoft accounts - XBox Live, Windows Live, Hotmail, Office Live and Zune Live (plus Google accounts etc) - can still be a pain to set up, but once you have, it works well. However, that it STILL doesn't directly sync with Outlook is ridiculous.

But these phones are so silky smooth to use, they do everything I need them to and they look good. They don't have a scrappy marketplace full of junk as with Android and while they're not as intuitive as an iPhone they're still easy to pick up and use. What's clear is that, while it's not popular yet, it works well, is well-backed and isn't going anywhere. For Australia's two million XBox owners, at this price, WP7 is a fantastic choice.

iPhone 4S

So how does Apple's latest far in such a competitive field? At first there was justifiable rage that this wasn't the iPhone 5, but ultimately, all that's missing is a new body. The insides are all new and the OS has been massively upgraded. But should there have been a better body?

Apple continually remarks about how strong the current glass chassis is. But while it's tough and scratch proof, it's also brittle. I've seen heaps of cracked backs (and fronts). My review sample vibrated itself off a table and landed on a tiled floor and cracked the back. While other phones aren't bombproof, they do seem to have been designed with an eye on dropping them onto hard surfaces - 'crumple zone' designs see impact pressure channelled into ejecting the battery cover to avoid damage. But this is a minor gripe.

The main thing is that it looks like a little baby compared to competitors. The 3.5-inch screen feels small but the high-resolution makes up for things. We'd like to see it larger, however. When sat next to the XL it looks like a child.

Proud Parents? The HTC Sensation XL (left) and Motorola Razr (right) dwarf the iPhone 4S. But how much does size matter?

Nonetheless, the new features are crammed in. The battery is 25 per cent larger than the iPhone 4 due to "antennae design improvements". The phone signal now dynamically switches between the phone and internet antennae to avoid the 'death grip' signal drop out which blighted the predecessor. Nonetheless, I still noticed a signal drop when I held it in my hand. It was less pronounced but a couple of calls did drop out. It's still a good idea to use a case.

The improvements over the iPhone 4 are many. It now has the iPad 2's A5 dual-core processor which has 7x the graphics power. Bluetooth 4 makes an appearance and you can use dual-screen apps over AirPlay - which is good for making presentations. The rear camera is vastly improved letting in heaps more light onto an improved sensor. The pictures are noticeably better.

If this all sounds like marketing talk, it's because it is - I'm listing what I was told. For all the improvements, it still handles very much like an iPhone 4 - but with a better camera. Many of the dual-screen features never got used by me in day-to-day use. The real improvements come with iCloud and the new iOS 5 - and are available on the iPhone 4. Over-the-air syncing is greatly improved and you don't ever need to connect to a computer with a wire at any point. However, as with the horrible MobileMe software, the first thing it did was take all my Outlook an d Google contacts and calendars and duplicate the lot. The iPhone might be great at syncing with Apple services, but the jury's still out on third party syncing. Android (and HTC Sense in particular) make a great fist of keeping all your contact details in one place for each person. Apple would do well to learn from this.

Notifications now resemble Android in that they appear on the locked home screen and can be quick-accessed by dragging the top bar down.

Location-based services, including friend and child tracker are improved (and can be turned off!) Parents can lock controls for kids which could be a killer feature for some. iMessage provides high-quality free messaging service with the millions of other iPhone users and integrates well with regular text messages. The Newsstand app offers a decent collection of news apps, although many will still prefer accessing regular webpages.

Web browsing and typing are still a joy. Despite the small screen, Apple's keyboard still seems to be generally the most accurate, although its autocorrect feature is still legendarily bad.

But what's captured the world's attention is Siri. This voice recognition, which lets you talk to your phone like a personal assistant, has impressed everyone... when it works. It's worth remembering that it's still only in beta - it couldn't understand what I said 90 per cent of the time (regardless of regional setting) and that happened for other people too. Nonetheless, the potential is there, especially for those with disabilities or who struggle prodding the screens or buttons on phones.

A popular gripe, however, is with iCloud syncing. This was always going to be a struggle for Apple. To make the best of this, as Android has consistently demonstrated, you have to manage it manually. Doing that is an anathema for Apple, where technology should "just work." Not surprisingly there have been many reports of batteries draining too quickly due to over the air syncing fails. I didn't find this too much of a problem, but I was concerned at receiving an email saying that my 5GB iCloud backup was almost full and that I'd have to buy more. Already. I have many apps and a fair amount of photos. But that's it. I don't want to pay more.

Ultimately, though, the problems syncing calendars and contacts were a giant pain for me and all of the hardware improvements were already available to me on the iPad 2. That left Siri as the killer feature, and presently that's something I can definitely live without.

Nonetheless, it's still the best choice for novice smartphone users thanks to unrivalled intuitiveness while all users gain from the enormous app store, massive market share and enormous industry backing. The iCloud-based music services, integration with Apple TV, AirPlay, iTunes and other Apple services are all very attractive... if you mould your life around Apple. But if you're a power user who spreads your world across multiple platforms, it's not the best choice.

With prices ranging from $800 to $1000 it's also massively expensive. For a similar price you could, for instance buy an HTC HD 7 and an iPad 2 and all you'd miss was Siri.

Honourable mentions

There were also some phones which I tested briefly. The HTC Rhyme is a female-friendly, $450ish HTC Android phone which worked as smoothly as other HTC Android phones. Motorola's ($320ish) Defy 2 is a ruggedized smartphone which is water-resistant and dust proof. I happily went snorkelling with it and threw it onto a sandy beach. Unfortunately, accidentally dropping it into a puddle with a hard floor let in enough water to make the battery explode and kill it. Before that, though, I was impressed with how speedy it was and the updated Motorola Blur software. Apparently, the original Defy struck a chord with hectic mums and tradies. It will be a bit small for some, but otherwise, it's a great phone. Another pocket rocket is the svelte Huawei Vision. This has an impressive, curved-glass screen which apparently takes some 17 hours to manufacture. It's a nippy little Android phone and impressively stylish - especially considering Huawei's traditional 'functional' design. It's only available for $279 on the Optus $19 cap at present. I also briefly used the ($520ish) HTC Sensation XE - the baby sister of the XL. This comes with enhanced audio, high-quality ear buds and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor - making it the fastest phone around right now.

Conclusion

I'm in a fortunate position of having access to every phone around. For once, however, I haven't been able to settle on a single model. On the one hand, I'd say that the XL is the winner for being fast, having a massive screen and great handling. However, I rather miss the HTC Evo 3D's battery, 3D features and more-comfortable-to-hold size. That said, I really want to go back to the HD7 and ramp up some more XBox points during down time. The only phones I don't miss are the N9 and the iPhone. The N9 couldn't cut it, but the only reason I'm not missing the iPhone is that the iPad 2 does almost everything it does but with a more-useful, much-larger screen. I even go back to the Razr periodically because, despite feeling awkward in the hand, it has imperious looks, power and great build quality.

The Galaxy S II (still around $520) isn't quite getting a look in - I personally prefer the similarly-sized Evo but that's more expensive and many people won't want to pay the extra for 3D.

Beyond that, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is on the horizon and PC World has a first look, here. It's got some great competition waiting when it officially touches down but it is a favourite to succeed.

Phone of the year

Before that happens I'll finish off with a Phone of the Year: the Samsung Galaxy S II. While its price hasn't dropped much in the several month's it's been available, this is testament to its popularity. It's the first phone to be widely-regarded as being better than the iPhone (The HTC Desire was the first to equal the iPhone IMHO). It's still a great phone and represents decent value in the current market. As such, it's ABC Tech and Games' Best Phone of 2011 - upgrade the built-in keyboard and it doesn't really put a foot wrong.

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Comments (17)

Ex-iPhoner :

I have the N9 and it's excellent. A few quirks that will be apparently addressed in the update from Nokia soon, but nothing too critical. Overall has a better UX than any other smartphone I've owned.

Great features, and enough essential apps covering what you need - everything from dropbox clients, IP camera viewers, document readers, password safekeeping, a few games, all sorts of utilities, even drum machines if you like that sort of thing.

Tablets are where apps get serious. Music making and virtually scratching records on your phone is a waste of time, get a tablet if you want that.

No mention of the built-in standalone GPS either. No need to buy an app, it's all there, independent of your data connection, it gives you turn-by-turn navigation out of the box, so you can replace your in-car sat nav. And that's exactly what I've done. Free maps for the whole world. Maybe people would like to hear that from a review?

Sometimes I think reviewers get the device and use it unrealistically - stress testing the CPU, opening a stupid amount of background apps, basically pushing it until it hits a wall and then say "hey, it hit the wall, it must be a lemon".

The N9 does a bunch of cool stuff out of the box, and has the whole HTML5 internet right there, and plenty of apps to get you going with most things you did on your old phone, plus more.

Speed? I have found it pretty fast actually. Sensible use of the N9 returns very good performance. Allowing countless background running apps to go nuts on your internet connection might be a silly way to use any smartphone. Why not just swipe down to close the app that you're not using? It's so easy to close and access applications from anywhere - THIS is the UX breakthrough other phones have not solved, and puts the N9 way out in front. I'm saying that as a former iPhone and Android owner. The N9 beats both for general UX - even with the minor quirks and bugs which will be resolved in the update soon.

No hardware buttons on the face is unique, and allows for a bigger screen on a small device. This is a great feature, and the swiping between apps is very intuitive - a breakthrough actually. Even little things like the clock always showing on the screen when in standby. Having to push a button and light up the whole screen just to see the time on any device is really quite dumb. In conclusion, I'm a fan of the N9 - many people will love it's minimal and elegant approach to accessing running applications and easy swiping movement around the phone.

Chris_Chavez :

03 Dec 2011 5:29:15am

Galaxy S II? It surprises the amount of people that don't make a big deal about AP Mobile app. This app will suck down data and use it hourly unless ALL data transfer is turned off on the phone. Completely defeats the purpose of getting texts in real time and email. What is the point if I have to turn off these features to save battery and worry about going over my data cap each month?

This and the fact that Samsung Kies doesn't enable connection between the phone and a regular Windows computer. In some cases, a SAMSUNG model computer. Go figure.

Jed :

02 Dec 2011 7:24:40pm

Odd, I've seen no shortage of reviews/comparos on the net which suggest N9's battery life is second only to iOS5x.

There are some bugs though (even w/PR1.1) that if triggered under the right conditions, can cause considerable battery drain.There's a number of threads at talk.maemo.org and possibly forum.meego.com that go into much more detail.It seems to be quite usage model dependent, & very random.

Fact:

N9 MeeGo-Harmattan 1.2 is purely a marketing name.And a dumb one at that, considering Nokia left the MeeGo project in Feb.It's really just Maemo6x + MeeGo (proper) compatibility layer.

It makes way more sense for them to have kept the Maemo name As there's still plans to actively develop it by virtue of the Meletmi project.

But bizarrely they spent mths in Q2 arguing their case with the Linux Foudation for the right to continue to use MeeGo.

Jed :

And unlike battery drain issues elsewhere... It's usually resolvable for the end-user with some twks/hacks.

1.1 def. isn't the bug/perf fix release it was meant to be though.Still some outstanding issues that will need to be corrected with 1.2

And that release is meant to be more focused on adding new features.Not dealing with bug/perf issues...

Still 1.1 did bring a lot of nice features for a .1 release.And it did also fix a bucket-load of bug/perf/stability issues.But I suspect there should've been less focus on feature-adds, & more on the latter.

Eric :

01 Dec 2011 1:45:14pm

While it's certainly nice to see my next phone (Nokia N9) included in a "Best Phones of 2011" article, I can't help but feel that your experience with it isn't representative of the typical user, and most other online reviews paint a very different picture of the N9 (particularly with regard to its multitasking performance and battery life). Did your N9 have the latest update installed (PR 1.1)? It fixes many issues, especially those related to multitasking and battery life. I've read that it now multitasks extremely well and battery life is well over a full day on average. May I also point out that you made no mention of the fine assortment of applications that are either pre-installed or built in and tightly integrated into the OS, like free turn by turn navigation that's accessible while offline. Again, I appreciate your inclusion of the N9, but I don't think your words come close to doing it justice, and savvy readers might do well to seek out additional sources of information on it.

Feltch :

Gerwin :

01 Dec 2011 9:51:25am

Funny that is, I have an accent, and talk to SIRI all the time without touching the keyboard anymore except when I am in a pub. Success rate over 90%. Does your wife get what you are saying? Or maybe you live in a train station. Just a thought...

Tasman Court :

So "the only reason I'm not missing the iPhone is that the iPad 2 does almost everything it does but with a more-useful, much-larger screen".

"Almost everything"? Like, you can't make telephone calls with the iPad?

The iPad is not a mobile phone so to compare the iPad with the iPhone and then mark the iPhone down would seem to be a bit of a non sequitur, particularly in an article that purports to be about the best phones.

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